Let's imagine that Inditex has decided to take a new approach regarding the name of their shops. They now wish to use names in Spanish or Galician.

Your job is to find the best possible new name for their shop "Lefties," either in Galician or in Spanish (that's up to you). You should research the meaning(s) of that term, find out what kind of items of clothing they sell at "Lefties," and even visit their stores, take photographs, speak to the staff, etc. and gather as much information as possible.

You must submit your papers IN HANDWRITING (sorry, but no digital docs or printed papers will be accepted in order to avoid "copy & paste" policies!). Remember that you should use the three columns of the "KWL" method:

K - What do I KNOW?

W - What do I WANT to know?

L - What have I LEARNT?

Make it original and fun and include photographs, quotations of the staff's answers or any other interesting stuff.

The deadline isFriday, March 5th. That does not mean you have to wait until that date to hand in your assigntments! Feel free to submit them as soon as you wish!

4th ESO students' contributions will be also most welcome, but you should only post them as comments on this blog or forward them to our e-mail.

An 8.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the South American nation of Chile, sparking official warnings that a tsunami could affect the entire Pacific region.

In what the country's president immediately declared "a state of catastrophe", the earthquake collapsed bridges, smashed cars, and cut power and water lines and the death toll is quickly rising.

"Houses damaged, windows shattered, a lot of things thrown around in some of those residential areas." (MSNBC)

"... caused blackouts in part of the capitol Santiago. Buildings have been reduced to rubble and phone lines have been brought down." (Russia Today).

"Back on mainland Chile the airport in Santiago is out of action and closed to air traffic. On the streets, dazed residents huddled together amid the rubble of fallen buildings." (ITN)

A Times of India report focuses on the reach of the quake, noting, "Strong tremors were felt across the continent – from Argentina to Ecuador... As the shockwaves travelled from Chile across the continent, the whole South America was woken up by strong tremors."

Now officials warn a tsunami threatens to rock the entire Pacific--that's about one-quarter of the globe.

And with the earthquake striking as Haiti still struggles to re-build, many in the media are comparing the two earthquake-ravaged nations.

"This is a very different country. This is a much more industrialized country. And as we've just been reporting, had the largest earthquake ever reported. I believe it was 9.5 magnitude. In that case that is the biggest earthquake the world has ever seen. ... But because this is a more industrialized nation, they do have better building standards." (Al Jazeera English)

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers uses Haiti's quake to put Chile's numbers in perspective: "When you go from 7.0 to 8.0 that is literally 32 times stronger of an earthquake, not just one time stronger. That's 32 times stronger. So let's now go to 9.0. That would be anoter 32. So that's not 64. That's 32 times 32. That would be 1,000 times stronger than the Haitian earthquake if we go to 9.0. But we're not at 9.0. We're 8.8. But close enough."

"Take on Me" is a song by Norwegian pop band a-ha. Written by the band members, the song was produced by Alan Tarneyfor the group's first studio album Hunting High and Low, released in 1985. The song combines synthpop with a varied instrumentation, which includes acoustic guitars, keyboards, drums and synthesizers.

The original "Take on Me" was recorded in 1984, and took three releases to chart in the United Kingdom, reaching number two on the UK Singles Chart in November 1985. In the United States the song reached the top position of the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1985, due in no small part to the wide exposure of its memorable and cutting-edge music video on MTV, directed bySteve Barron. The video features the band in a pencil-sketch animation/live-action combination called rotoscoping in which individual frames of live video are drawn over or colored. It became one of the most instantly recognizable and most enduringly popular music videos in the U.S., where it was nominated for eight awards at the third annual MTV Video Awards in 1986, winning six, including Best New Artist in a Video, Best Concept Video, Best Direction, Best Special Effects, and Viewer's Choice. "Take on Me" was also nominated for Best Video of the Year at the 1986 American Music Awards. Their six MTV Award wins for that video gave them twice as many wins as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and more than any artist in the three years of the awards combined.

And now enjoy a beautiful, gentle cover by Anni B. Sweet:

Have you ever wished songs actually sang about what was happening in the music video? Try a "literal video version" like this one: it is a faithful description of what is actually happening in the video:

Comic Relief is a British charity organisation which was founded in the United Kingdom in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is an annual telethon held in March, alternating asRed Nose Day and Sport Relief day. Comic Relief is one of the two high profile telethon events held in Britain, the other beingChildren in Need held annually in November.

Comic Relief was launched live on Noel Edmonds's Late, Late Breakfast Show on BBC1, on Christmas Day 1985 from a refugee camp in Sudan. The idea for Comic Relief came from the noted charity worker Jane Tewson, who established it as the operating name of Charity Projects, a registered charity in England and Scotland.

Comic Relief was inspired by the success of the first four Secret Policeman's Ball comedy benefit shows for Amnesty International (1976-1981). Initially funds were raised from live events, and the best known is a comedy revue at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London which was finally broadcast on television on 25 April 1986.

One of the fundamental principles behind working at Comic Relief is the "Golden Pound Principle" where every single donated pound (£) is spent on charitable projects. Alloperating costs, such as staff salaries, are covered by corporate sponsors, or interest which is earned while money raised is waiting to be spent on charitable projects.

Currently, its two main supporters are the public service broadcaster - the BBC, and the supermarket - Sainsbury's. The BBC is responsible for the live television extravaganza on Red Nose Day, and Sainsbury's sells merchandise on behalf of the charity.

Since the charity was started in the 1980s, Comic Relief has raised over £600 million.

Red Nose Day is the main way in which Comic Relief raises money. It is held in the spring every other year, and is often treated as a semi-holiday, with, for example,schools across the UK having non-uniform days. The day culminates in a live telethon event on BBC One, starting in the evening and going through into the early hours of the morning, but other money-raising events take place. As the name suggests, the day involves the wearing of plastic/foam red noses which are available, in exchange for a donation, from Sainsbury's and Oxfam shops.

/a:/ is a long, back, open vowel. This sound should mean no problem to you as it is almost identical to the way we pronounce the letter 'a' in Spanish when we say 'avión'.

The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark vowels because they are perceived as sounding darker than the front vowels.

The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Summer vacation was over and Little Johnny returned back to school. Only two days later his teacher phoned his mother to tell her that he was misbehaving. "Wait a minute," she said. "I had Johnny with me for three months and I never called you once when he misbehaved!"

Physics Teacher: "Isaac Newton was sitting under a tree when an apple fell on his head and he discovered gravity. Isn't that wonderful?"

Student: "Yes sir, if he had been sitting in class looking at books like us, he wouldn't have discovered anything."

A kid came home from school and said to her mother, "Mom, today in school I was punished for something that I didn't do." The mother exclaimed, "But that's terrible! I'm going to have a talk with your teacher about this ... by the way, what was it that you didn't do?" The kid replied, "My homework."

Teacher: Why are you late, Joseph?

Joseph: Because of a sign down the road.
Teacher: What does a sign have to do with your being late?
Joseph: The sign said, "School Ahead, Go Slow!"

The teacher of the earth science class was lecturing on map reading. After explaining about latitude, longitude, degrees and minutes the teacher asked, "Suppose I asked you to meet me for lunch at 23 degrees, 4 minutes north latitude and 45 degrees, 15 minutes east longitude...?"
After a confused silence, a voice volunteered, "I guess you'd be eating alone."

The child comes home from his first day at school. Mother asks, "What did you learn today?" The kid replies, "Not enough. I have to go back tomorrow."

Little Johnny wasn't getting good marks in school. One day he surprised the teacher with an announcement. He tapped her on the shoulder and said, "I don't want to scare you, but my daddy says if I don't start getting better grades, somebody is going to get a spanking!"

A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work. As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was. The girl replied, "I'm drawing God."

The teacher paused and said, "But no one knows what God looks like."

Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, "They will in a minute."

The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray: "Take only ONE. God is watching."
Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. A child had written a note, "Take all you want. God is watching the apples."